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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Jack Simpson

Cladding, mould, £75,000 charges – welcome to life in a British leasehold flat

Mar House resident Neal Dadia looking out of his window at the scaffolding-clad side of his block
Mar House leaseholder Neal Dadia was sent a letter in 2023 that included service charge arrears totalling £75,000. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Observer

For many of the residents of Mar House, the past year has been spent in perpetual twilight.

The seven-­storey block in Colindale, north London, is cloaked in blue netting and scaffolding that shroud its rooms in shadow in the middle of the day. The netting is for work to replace the building’s flammable Grenfell-style cladding and wooden balconies.

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